So imagine this, you have a guarenteed first home with the live of your life, today is a Thursday and you are expected to be paid.

You have to pay £1350 in cash to guarentee the moving date and the flat, you already have the amount in your account before being paid, but the extra months pay is an extra security blanket.

Checking your account in the morning you haven’t yet been paid, odd, but you expect it to be there after midday, its not.

Mass Google sessions reveals a technical issue, and I am advised to go into the bank. Which when I have finished work at 4 I do.

I’m not worried about getting paid as much as getting this deposit. So imagine arriving at the bank to be told that you can only withdraw a maximum of £300.

My heart stopped, on phoning the estate agents I was greeted with a rather short in helpful person, who said that I couldn’t pay on card, it had to be cash. And that I couldn’t use a bankers draft because that isn’t a confirmation of funds ( I’m pissed off a lot at this point, this person is stupid) so we couldn’t get the keys it the flat if we didn’t have the money.

I was first in line at the bank Friday morning, expecting to have to put up a huge fight and probably cry at what I was expecting to be people who could do nothing for me.

And you know what? I was wrong. They were assessing people on individual circumstances, by this point my pay had gone through and I had an overdraft to cover me as well. So they agreed to give me the full cash value. They were helpful, pointed me to places to make a complaint if I wanted to, and said I could ask for compensation if I was put under any stress.

My online transfers are a bit messy still, but I can’t fault the service natwest employ. I’m now in my dream flat with my dream man and I am part of an extremely helpful bank.

I know everyone is having problems still, but its the first problem in 10 years… And they have admitted they cocked up. Which is more than others have done. Thank you natwest for being helpful.

Notice how little I care, mainly because it isn’t always him. It is always just a bigger deal when it happens to a highly regarded racing driver.

ALSO. it wasn’t even LH who was at fault, it was his team. However how best do you punish a racing team? You pick on where they get there results. the driver….

Personally, I think the penalty is correct. The team didn’t follow the rules, even if it was an accident. He could have been disqualified from racing, so he definately didn’t get the worst possible outcome.

On the track, the event was incredible, more wheel to wheel action, more over takes and a different person from a different team on the top step of the podium. And although it’s the familiure finger of Sebastian Vettel filling our TV screens, he is the 4th person to take to the top step this season.

Off the track was a whole other board game. Protests, a death, a political uproar…. You name it and I can pretty much assure you that that is what the media were reporting.

“From what I have experienced here, and what I have seen in the media, are different. I felt fine going round Bahrain…”

Or words to that effect.

My twitter feed has been filled with my opinions of the Bahrain GP, infact I have blogged previously on it. I stand by what I said then, but I will add this analogy for you, one which people I know have had to go through.

Imagine you are working for an oil company. You know there are some pretty rough places out in the world, places you have heard on the news, places that your work are considering sending you to. These places include: Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Nigeria. Your raise the issue of travelling to these places and your work place agrees to inspect the location you are going to work for safety reasons.

Your workplace present the evidence to you, evidence from local security, local government, and external security forces. The evidence states that the place they are to send you to is safe.

You know that there are areas of these places which suffer unrest, infact you have heard it on the news, but only in fleeting passes.

Sound familiar?

It should. Because that is what happened in Formula One. Hindsight is a powerful thing and I bet if they could make a decision now about the race they wouldn’t have gone there. But as was pointed out as well by Martin Brundle, there has been a major golf and cricket tournament held there within the past month, where arguably, they received more coverage on the sports channels.

Why has F1 had to get involved in this? The media.

Simple two words but they have blown everything skywards. F1 had no choice to go there as soon as the FIA declared it fine to go and the teams said yes. I have great respect for those who openly spoke against it, Force India being the main ones with Ross Brawn saying that a dialogue was needed if a situation like this ever arised again.

As everyone was just doing as they were told I believe that it was a decision unfortunately taken out of the teams hands.

What this weekend has taught me, and what I hope everyone will take away from this, is that you can’t judge a book by its cover. Bahrain, according to the media, was a hell on Earth. According to the people there it was an uncomfortable situation, as they didn’t know how to feel about it.

I will from now on take the media reports with a pinch of salt. Yes Sky News is owned by the idiot that is Murdoch, and yes the BBC are meant to be impartial. But if it wasn’t for the F1 being there then nobody would be interested.

Thursday this news was headlines for the sports news.

Only by Friday evening was it hitting the main headlines, which goes to show how horrific the news is. It feeds on terrible news and information and doesn’t mind taking a small line from someone and making it seem like gospel. So please people, form your own opinions. Whether it is fom an amalgamation of the news sources, or from people you know have been there (the latter being where my info has come from).

And when it comes to activist groups and those involved with human rights… eat a spoonful of salt. They make everything worse than it is to just get it attention. (No bad thing I suppose… but not the right way to do things).

Should they have gone? No.

Did they have any choice in the matter? No.

Should Jean Todt be smacked in the face for saying that “things outside the circuit are of no importance to us” ? YES.

And before anybody comments, just know I was writing this down to get it out of my head. This weekend has caused a lot of thinking to be done by everyone it seems.

I had a first weight session yesterday and the first part of my running training. So my arms and the backs of my thighs feel like someone has shortened my muscles by a good 3cm.

I think I did quite well (before my phone broke – strop and stormed off in very much a 16 year old type of manner… I’m 22) I went on every maching, starting at level 6 on the machines, as they don’t seem to have the weights there and then I did 15-20 reps at each level all the way down to level 1, then another 15 reps at level 6 again for good measure.

I did some situps too for the first time in ages. I counted to 20 before doing the horrible side ones and then sarted feeling teh burn so I stopped! Whimpy I know but I was hurting 😦 . I’m gonna try that health and fitness routine tonight I think. Get my other half to push me more so that it actually has an effect!

I said I started my running training too, I set the treadmill up for a 30min work out, set my walk speed at 5kmph, and my running at 9.5kmph and did 5 min walk followed by a 1 min run. The thing that blew my mind? Taking bigger steps stopped my ankles hurting. Propper striding out that is, so I would have to go at a pretty fast pace, but this 7 week thing should get me running 2 miles comfortably by the end of it, then I can start running outside the gym, as by then it should be light when I get home from my new job!

I saved over 900 calories yesterday, and I had extra protein by going to nandos. ❤ Nandos.

My next gym day is Wednesday, I’ll do my weights again, won’t start counting the situps till the burn kicks in and do my second stage in the running.

THEN hopefully my weigh in at the end of the week will be nicer to me. 🙂

But I am proud to say that my size 16 jeans now literally fall off me. Think of the comedy weight loss photo, I can do that!

My tongue and jaw started to hurt whilst at work, I started talking with a harsh lisp which meant I had to rest my tongue inbetween calls and was then taking much less calls during the day.

It just seemed to get worse, I thought my day off would sort it, but it went from flaring up when I talk to being constantly tenses at the back of my mouth, my jaw was aching so much from where it was just constantly tensed that I got sent home from work because the customers couldn’t understand me.

That sucks. I mean, I enjoy my work, the people who call up are nice, the people I work with are lovely, I just wish it was more challenging. (O – and better paid. But who doesn’t want that?) So I really felt I was letting the team down having to have 2 days off work to just rest my tongue. It’s not like i’m self prescribing here, I went to GP in the morning, the A&E in the evening, because it just didn’t go down and got worse!

I think it’s getting better, the rest has certainly helped. I’m just not sure how it will cope with work…. Guess i’ll find out tomorrow!

I don’t know who to blame here. The government? Myself? The idiotic twats who caused the recession and hence my unfortunate employment prospects? The fact is i’m now stuck, I mean it would help if i really knew what i wanted to do, I know I like the outreach stuff, but I never really liked the condescending and patronising nature of some of the companies I know. I would set my own company up, but I don’t know how I would get around the problems! Or what I would do… tutoring? mentoring? Encouraging more people to get into science? I suppose look where it got me! Not very inspirational is it.

I just don’t know what to do! May be a PGCE will bulk out my qualifications and help me with my research for an outreach company? Who knows. Perhaps i could just go into teaching altogether?

It’s been a while i know, and i can only apologise for what has been only a stalking and fleeting glance at your facebook page whenever you post something new. I would like to say thank you for this, as your Harry Potter status’s and the comments that follow do put a grand smile on my face, a rare sight these days.

I believe I should start with what I have done since shall we say January? I turned the old age of 22, managed to secure myself a man of grand standing (and younger age!) for life. The ring is gorgeous and as of August 2013 I will no longer be associated with the name ‘Parfitt‘ – on paper of course. You are of course invited (with an additional person of your choice) to the celebration, we’re planning an open bar!

I have graduated, averaging a suitable 55.5%, a 2:2 honors degree. I read Physics and Astronomy and my o my do I have no idea what to do with the rest of my life! The hunt for employment is long and hard over this side of the Atlantic, So hard I have had to start receiving job-seeking benefits to the sum of ~ £50 per week, a sum to tie me over and keep me occupied, however not one to provide for oneself! So I have moved back into my parents dwelling till such time as I can provide for myself, also, so that I may live with my toy-boy, who still has one remaining year left of his studying before he begins the pursuit of teaching.

I believe that brings us all upto date on the major events that have happened. I miss the Americas, I hope to come and visit again when the F1 turns up in Texas, or perhaps when I decide to actually visit LA. No matter where I go however, you can rest assured that I will come and visit you for at least a couple of days.